According to Orffyreus’biographer J. Collins, Orffyreus constructed four major wheels in his lifetime varying from smaller to
larger size with capacity to produce more and more power.1 These were exhibited, examined and tested. No fraud was
ever detected. Collins has found that in addition to these four well-publicized wheels Orffyreus also constructed three more
wheels.During all tests, the officials who had talked with him were convinced
that he was a sincere inventor.

Orffyreus exhibited his wheels at various towns like Prague, Gera, Leipzig, Drashwitz, and Merseburg,
all these were parts of Germany in those times.The accounts of exhibitions to
the public, examinations of these wheels by distinguished persons and all other events and episodes related to the wheels
are very interesting to read and are source of vital information.These events
cover major part of the story of Orffyreus.We have many versions of the story
from different authors in which descriptions of the eventsvary slightly but
main story remains undisputable that Orffyreus invented perpetual motion and demonstrated it without a fraud.

Let us look into various details of Orffyreus’
wheels that he built in his lifetime with all hope that his work on perpetual motion would get recognition in world of science
and technology and eventually bring him a suitable reward. To achieve this goal, he struggled steadfastly through out his
life.In following pages, you will find descriptions of main events that mark
his life. You will find arguments, explanations on his wheel and also guess work about their working mechanism put forward
by various authors.In the end, you will also find reconstruction of his wheel
by Ramananda.

1Orffyreusbuilt,
publicly exhibited, and destroyed four “self” moving wheels though Collins (p. 60) has found evidence for three
more such perpetual motionwheels built (and destroyed) by Orffyreus.The first of the four popular wheels was shown publicly in Gera in 1712 (see p. 15).Each unique wheel rotated about a horizontal axle.See the figures on pp. 27, 35, 199 of J. Collins’ book “Perpetual Motion:An Ancient Mystery Solved? and some related discussion on pp. 36, 66, 198.

Measurments of Orffyreus' Wheels

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Using your mouse, you raise the balls above, either
1, 2 or 3 balls together, and then release them to watch their perpetual motion and symmetry.